


Clear as the Bell Tolls

by blackfin



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: M/M, One-Sided Attraction, One-sided pining, just a little bit, slightly angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 21:29:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15446256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackfin/pseuds/blackfin
Summary: Sometimes, he wondered if Link was aware of it. And whenever he wondered, he felt for certain that he must be.There was no mistaking how Queen Zelda looks at him. No mistaking the longing in her eyes for Link to return to her side, where he had once stood 100 years ago.





	Clear as the Bell Tolls

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to play with the idea of Zelda being very much in love with Link, before and after the 100 year span but Link falls in love with Sidon, and there's that kind of thing going on  
> Please note that this is not a selfish, jealous, possessive Zelda. This is not a crazy ex-girlfriend Zelda. This is a young woman who went into a fight in love and came out of the fight in love, and is trying to deal with her feelings not being returned and all the fun shit that goes on in that circumstance  
> -  
> Cross posted on my tumblr, blackfen

Sometimes, he wondered if Link was aware of it. And whenever he wondered, he felt for certain that he must be.

There was no mistaking the way Queen Zelda looked him, the way her smile brightened whenever he appeared, how she always seemed so much lighter, happier when they were together. Granted, he knew that alone was not an indication of deeply rooted love, stemming from something more than what close friends share. What was a clue, a hint of how Queen Zelda felt was the way she looked at him when Link’s back was turned, when he was looking elsewhere and, especially, when he was looking up at him.

Longing, clear and loud as a bell tolling in the early morning. In those bright blue eyes was a quiet, restrained, pained desire to reach out, catch his collar and pull him back to her side, to return him to where he had once stood 100 years ago. With Hyrule slowly getting back into its feet after the defeat of Calamity Ganon, Link started to split his time between the rebuilding of Castle Town and Zora’s Domain, effectively splitting the time he spent with Queen Zelda as well. As more and more time passed, Link’s presence in the Domain became that more common until it was rare for him not to be there.

There were no ill words passed between them. No jealously, anger or hate. Instead, there was an awkwardness, an awareness that they both knew how the Queen felt. Of course, they were on friendly terms, and got along excellently but underneath it all was the ceaseless ringing of those morning bells. Sometimes, he wondered if there was a twig, a sprig of anger towards him buried deep within her heart. Though, perhaps, if there was, he felt as though it wasn’t aimed at him but rather, her circumstances, her fate; culminating into anger, sadness, grief that fate had deemed they not be together, and that Link was destined to give his heart to someone else.

Glancing at her during those moments when Link’s back was too her, he wondered if they had shared anything 100 years ago. When he posed the question to Link, he simply waved his hand and shook his head. Friends, he signed. My closest, dearest friend. Watching his fingers move, creating the symbols that spoke in the absence of his voice, Sidon nearly posed the question: did he know? Did he understand that Queen Zelda didn’t look at him the same way he looked at her?

Did he understand that she spent 100 years, locked in a terrible fight, waiting for her Knight to return, only to be met with a man who remembered but scraps, fragments, flashes of what his life had once been and, perhaps even worse, had found love during his journey to destroy the greatest evil this world had ever known?

The question, he realized after a considerable amount of pondering, was a foolish one. There was no one alive who knew the Queen better than Link, and the Champion of Light was incapable of the cruelty, the callousness that was required to disregard feelings so earnest and pure. It was simply inconceivable to think he didn’t know. His heart ached for his little pearl but he wept for the Queen. There were times when he almost wished things had been different then his heart would seize in terror at the thought of his Link, his pearl not being by his side, not being there with him.

In that split moment, he understood. When he looked into Queen Zelda’s eyes as she stared with the most profound longing at Link’s back, he understood her agony. And in that split moment, he was filled with an atrocious, selfish, despicable, heartless cruelty that left him cold, trembling and gagging with guilt. In that split second when he understood her pain, it came accompanied with a sharp, bright realization.

He would never allow anyone to take Link away from him.


End file.
